Garland, Defense Shut Down Cardinals

Jon Garland walked the high wire, and came away unscathed.   Especially in the first inning.

Before we get to that, a quick comment.  Darren Smith, on the Padre BP show, talked about last year's Cardinal/Padre finale and the Will Venable/Albert Pujols dust-up at first base.  He shed some additional light on that event; apparently AP tends to straddle the first base line when recording outs at first, so the Padres were told to go through him.

Smith, in attempting to recall the specifics of the event, said it occured in September, on Sunday, and the Padres won.  Not quite.  Happened on a Sunday?  Yes.  But, it was 23 Aug 09, and the Padres lost 5-2.  It helps my memory that Smoltz struck out a career best 7 consecutive hitters, and that it was Ryan Franklin's last save in 2009, AND that I wrote about it over here.  Come on Darren.  I know you're a St John's* alum, but you're better than that.

* A little Big East dig, since I went to Villanova.

Garland labored through the first, but got the big strikeouts when he needed them.  His defense backed him up by turning 3 double plays during his seven innings.  Jerry Hairston, Jr, pulled a rabbit out of his hat and hit his first 2010 HR - off Cardinal ace Adam Wainwright, no less.  Another example of the Padres doing just enough to win.

Mike Adams threw an uneventful eighth, and Heath Bell negotiated an interesting ninth (exacerbated by the strike zone, if Ted Leitner/Andy Mazur are to believed) to get the save.

Last night was the third 1-0 win this season by San Diego.  That's the most since 2007, when they won 5 such games.  The franchise record for 1-0 wins is 6, set in 1985.

If I had anything to nit-pick, it would be Adrian Gonzalez striking out 4 times.  However, considering the first three came against the 2009 Cy Young runner-up, that's not much of a nit.

Kevin Correia looks to snap his personal 3-game losing streak tonight against Jamie Garcia.  This will be Kevin's second start at Petco against the Cardinals; he lost the first one 7-0 to Chris Carpenter.  He is 1-2 in 3 career starts facing St Louis.  Five current Redbirds have at least 8 Plate Appearances against him:

1. Felipe Lopez (29 PA):  .200/.286/.280
2. Matt Holliday (25 PA):  .304/.360/.609
3. Albert Pujols (13 PA):  .400/.538/.500
4. Yadier Molina (9 PA):  .143/.250/.143
5. Skip Schumaker (8 PA):  .429/.500/.571

I'll be at the ballpark tonight.  Hope to see you there.

My coverage of the game from the Cardinal perspective can be found here.  Yes the content is different.